Upstream - From the Frontlines: Class Struggle and Class War in the US Southeast w/ Cecilia Guerrero

Episode Date: January 28, 2025

Class is the thread that ties different systems of oppression together—whether it’s patriarchy, national oppression, racist oppression, reproductive injustice, anti-trans oppression. Although these forms of oppression impact individuals, they operate on systemic levels. These forms of oppression cannot be understood as single, isolated, or parallel struggles—they are all manifestations of class society and can only be abolished with the end of class society. Class is what ties it all together.   When we understand this, we can begin to appreciate the importance of class-based organizing. We begin to understand why it’s crucial to identify class positions, class interests, and class politics when we talk about organizing workers, organizing tenants, or organizing around any issue within capitalism.  This is what we’ll be focusing on in today’s episode in this second installment of our “From the Frontlines” series—where, far from simply analyzing these ideas from an armchair, we’ll be talking about them with someone who has spent many years organizing and building worker power—particularly in the Southeast of the United States.  Cecilia Guerrero is a chair and founding member of A Luta Sigue, an organization based in Nashville, Tennessee which incubates and trains young people and workers within advanced sectors of the working class to build and lead their own class struggle organizations. In this conversation we explore what it’s like organizing a wide variety of working class people in Nashville, Tennessee—from Uber and Lyft drivers to construction workers—most of whom are refugees and immigrants. We talk about the importance of injecting militancy and radical politics into labor organizing, of the failures of liberalism and the Democratic party, how A Luta Sigue identifies revolutionary classes and individuals and helps to incubate them and coordinate campaigns, organizing under Trump, the need for a communist party in the United States, and much, much more.  Further Resources A Luta Sigue Poder Popular Tennessee Drivers Union Southern Youth Solidarity Network Marxist-Leninist Perspectives on Black Liberation and Socialism, Frank Chapman "The Tyranny of Structurelessness," Jo Freeman The Communist Necessity, J. Moufawad-Paul The Long Transition Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism, Torkil Lauesen Related Episodes: What is to Be Done? with Breht O’Shea and Alyson Escalante The Sharing Economy? (Documentary) The Missing Revolution w/ Vincent Bevins Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism w/ Breht O'Shea and Alyson Escalante Historical Materialism w/ Torkil Lauesen Towards Socialism and the End of Capitalism: An Introduction Intermission music: "Payday at Coal Creek” by Odetta & Larry Upstream is a labor of love—we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at  upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

We live in a class society. Class is the threat that ties the different systems of oppression together and the ultimate determining factor that separates who's a friend and who's an enemy. It is determined by your means of sustaining and reproducing yourself, right? So how do you appropriate value? Do you have to work? Do you do reproductive labor? Do you exploit others, right? So like, you know, classes are social groups of people that occupy a common role in economic production and distribution. They share a common way of life, common political interests, which is key, common political interests, and a common place in society. Right? So if we are not

organizing by class, we are not gonna be aligning people that have the same political interests. You are listening to Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. A show about political economy and society that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about the world around you. I'm Della Duncan. And I'm Robert Raymond. Class is the thread that ties different systems of oppression together, whether it's patriarchy, national oppression, racist oppression, reproductive injustice, or anti-trans oppression. Although these forms of oppression impact individuals, they operate on systemic levels. These forms of oppression cannot be understood as single, isolated, or parallel struggles. They are all manifestations of class society and can only be abolished with the end of class society.

Class is what ties it all together. When we understand this, we can begin to appreciate the importance of class-based organizing. We begin to understand why it's crucial to identify class positions, class interests, and class politics when we talk about organizing workers, organizing tenants, or organizing around any issue within capitalism.

This is what we'll be focusing on in today's episode in this second installment of our From the Frontlines series, where far from simply analyzing these ideas from an armchair, we'll be talking about them with someone who has spent many years organizing and building worker power, particularly in the Southeast of the United States. Cecilia Guerrero is a chair and founding member of Aluta Sigue, an organization based in Nashville, Tennessee, which incubates and trains young people and workers

within advanced sectors of the working class to build and lead their own class struggle organizations. In this conversation we explore what it's like organizing a wide variety of working-class people in Nashville, Tennessee, from Uber and Lyft drivers to construction workers, most of whom are refugees and immigrants. We talk about the importance of injecting militancy and radical politics into labor organizing, we talk of the failures of liberalism and the Democratic Party, how Alutha Sige

identifies revolutionary classes and individuals and helps incubate them and coordinate campaigns, organizing in general under Trump, the need for a new Communist Party in the United States, and much much more. And before we get started, Upstream is almost entirely listener-funded. We could not keep this project going without your support. There are a number of ways that you can support us financially. You can sign up to be a Patreon subscriber, which will give you access to bi-weekly episodes ranging from conversations to readings and more. Signing up for Patreon is a great way to make Upstream a weekly show, and it will

also give you access to our entire back catalogue of Patreon episodes, along with stickers and bumper stickers and certain subscription tiers. Sign up and find out more at patreon.com. to website, UpstreamPodcast.org forward slash support. Through this support, you'll be helping keep Upstream sustainable and helping keep this whole project going. Socialist political education podcasts are not easy to fund, so thank you in advance for the crucial support. And now, here's Robert in conversation with Cecilia Guerrero. Cecilia, it is great to have you on the show.

It's great to be here. And I'm sorry if my voice is a little weird and hard to listen to today. This is for you and for our listeners. I think I have laryngitis or something. I don't feel sick at all, but I just lost my voice on Monday. So thank you for bearing with me. I know I sound like shit, and we'll try to get through this together, and hopefully you can do most of the talking.

So yeah, I'm wondering if to start you could just introduce yourself or listeners and maybe just tell us a little bit about how you came to do the work that you're doing. Of course, and I hope you feel better. Thank you. So I can start. My name is Cecilia. I am a chair and founding member of Aluta Sigue, an organization based in Nashville. I was born and raised in Northern Mexico in a very large family of steel workers who were labor and political organizers. Different shades of red,

depending on which generations we're talking about. Growing up, I didn't really think much about it, but my upbringing was definitely a crucial period that shaped me and my style of political work. However, I did not consider myself a political worker until many years later, after having experienced the violence that the US-funded war on drugs inflicted in my country, after having lived in the U.S. for years and just getting a taste of what like the quote unquote land of the free is all about, both through firsthand experiences and just by witnessing how, you know, this

society treated more exploited members of my community. Working for five years, for example, as an interpreter tutor for recently arrived immigrant youth in Western Massachusetts, which allowed me to integrate with communities of farm workers and restaurant workers, which was reflective of the local economy. And I also did some organizing with a worker center in the region. I didn't end up moving to the South though until after I traveled to Mississippi to join the ground efforts after the Mississippi ice raids of 2019, which were the largest ice raids in U.S. history.

You know, I raided three major poultry plants and kidnapped over 800 people, primarily Mayan workers. And the aftermath resembled a natural disaster. There were children without parents, neighbors taking care of, you know, more than 10 kids at a time. It was pure chaos.

And so the contradictions of the US of the immigrant rights movement of the labor movement become very apparent in Mississippi, right? You know, my specific delegation arrived after there was an urgent call for labor organizers as the infrastructure was lacking. And we were, you know, talking about a workplace rate, right? Which was potentially an act of retaliation

as it had taken place just one year after the CCP poultry workers had secured a multimillion dollar settlement due to horrific crimes they had endured at the hands of management. And so, this experience ended up convincing me to move to the South, an area where I found that I can be most useful, an

area that is literally and culturally closer to home, and with an economy that is strongly connected to the economy of Northern Mexico, which is my roots and a group of people I am very much devoted to as well. And so I've been living in Nashville for the last five plus years. During that time, I worked at a local worker center where I had some painful, informative experiences that helped me see firsthand the issues and contradictions of the movement today. And seeing how the movementism, the economy, the liberalism, are all manifestations of a left that is disconnected

from the most exploited, most essential, and most militant workers in society, disconnected from history and subjugated to the Democratic Party. And so here we are today. And we'll get much more into the, like you mentioned, the contradictions of the labor movement and sort of the toxic and deadening role that liberalism has played in it over

the, I mean, the last, over the last century. But thank you so much for sharing that about yourself. And it's such a fascinating story. And you know, I just want to upfront, like, thank you so much for the incredible work that you're doing. And so generally on this show we tend to get like pretty heady and we talk a lot, and not exclusively, but we do talk a lot about theory and ideas and that kind of thing. And we will be getting into that as well with you, but it's really nice to be talking to you, particularly because you're just so on the ground, right? Like it's really nice to be talking about on the ground organizing.

And I'm always aware of sort of the connection between theory and practice and how they build on and support each other. And I wanna share a line that I really love. And I just came across it quite recently through reading a book by a black socialist organizer named Frank Chapman. And the line is, quote, practicing our way to correct thinking. And sort of it illustrates the importance of practice and how we shape our revolutionary

theory and action. And I guess to start just before we dive into the work that you are doing on the ground, I'd love to know a little bit about where your inspiration comes from and sort of like what informs the work that you do, both in terms of, you know, ideological tendencies, but also what movements, figures, organizations you'd say help shape the way that you see the world and the way that you do organize now? Of course.

You know, this is kind of a tricky question, right? Because the conditions in the domestic context in the United States are so far removed from historical memory and from correct practice that, you know, I could begin by telling you an ideological label, but that can be interpreted in many different directions. One thing that I have learned in the United States is that most people might claim that they are a particular ideology, but they could call themselves like Marxist Leninist or or Marxist-Leninist-Malist.

And in many situations, they might not even be Marxist, right? So I find that it hasn't been a very productive route for conversation and for productive discussion, because we are lacking proper unity among Reds for line struggle to really happen and for us to be able to have the same vocabulary. In terms of which figures do I look into, I look at the experience of the working class in struggle throughout history and throughout the world and looking at what has worked and what has not worked.

One of the primary tasks that we believe that need to happen is to engage in a practice that we call social investigation and class analysis. This is all part of MassLine politics, but Mao was able to synthesize the concept of the MassLine, but this wasn't something particular to Mao necessarily. but Mao was able to synthesize the concept of the math line, but this wasn't something particular to Mao necessarily. He was only able to synthesize it,

but we see that Lenin and other figures in communist history have used it, which is creating assessments of concrete conditions. So we believe that our work should be grounded on an ever-growing and correct understanding of society and class struggle. So taking the time to understand the different classes that exist within our context, the relationships that these classes have with each other and the economy, politics, culture, even nature,

means that we're gonna be able to develop a correct understanding of our society and a correct orientation of our work. The left fails when it fails to conduct social investigation to identify the correct social base from where our movement must draw its power. The correct social base is the sectors of society with the objective power to make history, which are very far removed from any movement that deems itself to be revolutionary or progressive within the imperial core. So I think within the imperial core, we need to even go back to the basics and go back to try to develop a correct understanding of our society, of our political economy, right? So when done properly, social

investigation can clarify who the friends and the enemies are, whose interests must be prioritized in our mass work, the role that our organizations are supposed to have in the broader struggle because each sector of society has a different role in class struggle. We can clarify what are the contradictions of society? How are these contradictions that are going to develop? And how can we adapt to the shifting conditions that arise from these contradictions as organizations?

Because otherwise as organizations, we're not going to be able to be relevant or survive. It also helps us develop a correct orientation to our mass work. What is the minimum and maximum program? What are the demands of our movement in the short and long term? What is the plan to change conditions? If our org is composed of more petit-pougeot activists, how do we plan to align with the interest of the advanced classes of society?

Right? And you know, like social investigation is not necessarily when you go and identify needs of a particular group of people around a campaign, right? But, you know, our external work, our campaigns should be informed by CICA. And from the moment of identifying who are the groups of people that I'm going to be working with, right? Most organizations are just identifying them before they conduct social investigation, right? We should also be able to develop an effective communications strategy and an education plan that is tailored to the specific classes that we're working with, right? And ultimately to me, like we are through social investigation is that we can identify whose power must we consolidate,

right? Which sectors of society we need to prioritize, we need to rally around, which sectors of society can be consolidated but in alignment and being accountable to the advanced sectors and which sectors of society should not be consolidated at all because they are, you know, maybe bourgeois structures. So right now at this

point, I think that's what's guiding our work, just a correct understanding of society and the history and lessons of decades and centuries of class struggle throughout the world. of decades and centuries of class struggle throughout the world. Yeah, thank you so much for that. I really love that. And a quote that I keep coming back to and which I heard very strongly in your response is a quote from Lenin, which is, quote, the very gist, the living soul of Marxism is a concrete analysis of a concrete situation. And on that note, and maybe if you want to weave in some of the social investigation

that you were just talking about, I'm wondering if you can tell us a little bit about the kinds of organizing that you do in the South. And just like who are you organizing primarily, what are you organizing towards, and what does that look like? For sure. So, you know, our main objective here is to provide a small, humble framework

for how to unite the petit bourgeois activists left with the most exploited, necessary, and militant workers in a given region. And through this process, increase the participation and leadership of these sectors of workers in broader struggles that are outside their immediate self-interests, right? Outside of the economic fights. And build a broader kind of solidarity.

On another level, on an organizational level, we are aiming to develop political workers that have clarity of purpose, that have alignment with their purpose and historical role, and who are determined to fulfill their historical role, right? Who can develop a correct and comprehensive understanding of particularly here the political economy of Tennessee and even the southeast which you know we see as some of our key contributions right because this is a crucial and necessary region and one that not every organizer in our national movement is willing to organize in. We have three main projects right now. So we have the Tennessee Drivers Union,

which is the largest union of Uber and Lyft drivers in the Southeast representing hundreds of drivers from over 16 nationalities. We have Poder Popular, which is an organization of Latino immigrant workers with the largest tenant unions and the largest base of construction, manufacturing, hospitality workers of side of the established unions in Tennessee.

And we have the Southern Youth Solidarity Network, which is a youth led group with chapters in Nashville and Memphis, aimed at uniting the struggle of young people with the struggle of international working class. And so I can explain a little bit about the logic behind our work. So each of our mass projects addresses

a different sector of society. We identify leaders in advanced sectors of the working class, which we describe as sectors with the most exploited, necessary, and militant workers. And we train these leaders to build and lead class struggle organizations, building their strategic and tactical leadership through campaign work, and provide them with tools to analyze their conditions, understanding their role in the struggle. This is a process that begins with social investigation, as I have been mentioning,

and I will continue to mention, beginning by integrating into working-class neighborhoods, building relationships, talking to people, learning about their conditions and their attitudes towards class struggle. How fed up are they? How angry? How have they engaged in spontaneous struggles before? So we take the time to find the group of workers that are most ready to engage in class struggle, who are already organizing themselves and who are also super essential to the economy and are producing the most surplus value as they are highly exploited. So through this process, we identified these leaders and that's who we train in organizational

development and strategic campaigning and provide political education. Our current base is workers in industries that are emerging, that have economic significance in our region. Nashville has no public transportation, like basically zero, and it's a tourist destination at the same time and depends on Uber and Lyft drivers. The tourism economy depends on on Uber and Lyft drivers. At the same time, Uber and Lyft are two big tech companies, right? And big tech currently has a lot of power within the state, you know, not just Tennessee, but like, you know, within the state state. And, you know, Nashville also Tennessee, but like, you know, within the state state. And, you know, Nashville also is a rapidly gentrifying city, right, that depends on the labor of immigrant construction workers, with, you know, many manufacturing located in the outskirts

of the city. So, you know, our members are working primarily in industries like construction, ride share, manufacturing and hospitality, but primarily the first like construction, rideshare, manufacturing, and hospitality, but primarily the first three. Our current base, they are refugees, they are immigrants, they are gig workers, and these folks cannot join traditional unions for different reasons, right? So rideshare drivers are primarily composed

of folks that are classified as refugees. They are not protected by the National Labor Relations Act because gig workers, like app-based gig workers, are misclassified, right? So because their status as independent contractors, because of all the lobbying that Uber and Lyft have been doing, they're not protected by the NLRA. Meanwhile, immigrant workers have been left

out for different reasons, right? And so all of these sectors are highly exploited workers. They are dealing with rampant wage theft, with things like uncoordinated wage discrimination, with child labor in the case of construction workers and manufacturing workers dying on the job with all kinds of injuries and medical bills. And you know, being left out of the labor movement, although it sucks for some reason, it also has some pros. So you know, they have more freedom to organize and the opportunity to build more democratic organizations that are fully theirs and can be more militant. You know, in the case of right-share workers, since they're not covered by the NLRA, they can engage in more militant collective action, like intermittent strikes or going after secondary targets. Because

the NLRA regulates and mediates these relationships between employer and employee and might keep employers accountable in some ways, but then also they also regulate the activities that employees can engage in. So without these protections, there's also more freedom to organize. And in the case of immigrant workers, we hope that organizing them into more independent and militant structures can be a contrast

of the current status quo, which is immigrant workers being contained within nonprofits, within more worker-centered structures that pacify them. They might limit the scope of their campaigns that they can engage in within the parameters determined by philanthropy and nonprofit law, as nonprofits are not allowed to engage in direct worker organizing. So the campaigns are going to be a lot more mellow, a lot more advocacy based, and not focused around the main things that immigrant workers might want, which is to end the super exploitation of immigrants as a category, right?

So end the national oppression that they experience in the United States. So like, that cannot happen unless they are able to join a broader class struggle, like outside of economic fights. And, you know, we see too that, you know, when workers have more control over their organizations, like over their organizational identity, and over the way they struggle, they become more confident as political workers, right? Because, you know, hey, you cannot join a traditional union. It doesn't matter. You can build your own union. Unions have existed since before the NLRA and will continue to exist if the NLRA goes away. You know, a 501c5 status is not what makes a union a union.

So, you know, by building their own structures, like workers are really feeling part of the labor movement of the working class, and that has consequences, right, for what comes next in terms of class struggle. You brought up so many interesting points there, and I just want to touch on a couple of them. So you mentioned Economism, and I just want to direct folks to our episode on what is to be done. The text by Lenin, which we covered with the red menace folks, Brett and Allison, just a quick nut graph of what that sort of is pointing to here is the economic struggle versus the political struggle. And it sounds like, you know,

not that those two are separated at all, but what we're focusing on here and what it sounds like you're focusing on is bringing politics into the economic struggle, which is something that has been stripped from the labor movement in so many ways over the past century and bringing in sort of a confrontation of power in the political sphere. And it's really interesting to hear about sort of the other side, right, of not being under the jurisdiction of the NLRA and how this actually opens up pathways and sort of brings a certain sense of freedom, like you mentioned, to the workers who can organize in different ways that aren't necessarily restricted by that act. And especially because we know that the National Labor Relations Board is about to get a lot

more reactionary since the Democrats forgot, just happened to forget to confirm one of the board's Democratic members in order to lock in their majority. So the NLRB under Trump is going to have a different makeup. Oopsie. Yep. But just to bring in what's happening, I guess, bringing in Trump into the conversation and the Trump administration, just in the first week, we've seen the plans to implement expedited mass deportations without due process, ICE raids.

Both houses of Congress have passed the Lakenreilly Act, which requires federal immigration authorities to detain undocumented immigrants arrested for certain non-violent crimes. It's altogether a very anti-immigrant agenda. And I'm curious how all of this is being felt in your organizing spaces and what the response might look like if that's being shaped. response might look like if that's being shaped? Ooh, okay. Yeah. So Trump is appealing to his base primarily right now. It's, it's, he's putting up a show, birthright citizenship, for example, like, you know, you need a constitutional amendment for the language in his executive

order to have material consequences. I also, you know, I want to say our working class base, as I mentioned, right, is primarily composed of immigrants and refugee workers, right? Of course, things can get stressful, but our experience has been different than what many liberals or people looking at our situation from the outside might think, you know, where also, you know, immigrants and refugees based in the southeast, in one of the most hostile places for workers, right? Believe it or not, we have immigrant members who think Trump is going to be good for the economy, or they might

think that at least the economy cannot get worse than it got under Biden, which is like a total 180 from 2016. We have members from countries where the US is doing some active imperialism who think maybe Trump is not going to spend as much money in wars. And while these are not correct analysis, they are manifestation of the declining state of US society. And so, you know, we should remember that whenever there are any changes in, you know, the mystical global economy, workers

are going to be the ones that are going to experience these consequences first, and we're going to feel them the hardest. So, you know, workers who are saying these things, they're just really speaking to the real changes in their material conditions. And now, there are a lot of incorrect ideas floating around Trump and so many leftists talk about him like he's really seeking qualitative or drastic change in US society when like him and his corporate handlers like including the Democrats are all seeking the opposite right they want things to stay the same they're drowning men trying to avoid a problem that they can no longer avoid, which is the crisis of capitalist imperialism. We live in a period where the objective conditions

behind the power players are changing, right? These power players do not know how to anticipate or keep up with these changes because they have exhausted all their energy and they're competing over ever tighter and tighter markets. These imperialists were able to pass off every crisis onto other countries for almost a century. They sent critical industry overseas and turned the U.S. into a service economy. Without the need of a skill and domestic industrial workforce, they defunded education to the point that like most US citizens like basic math and reading skills and they use their military power to inflict terror across the global South and that's all coming back to bite them in the ass now. They're no longer able to

imperialize in the way that they used to. Their coups are failing, colonies and semi-colonies are fed up and rising up, their propaganda is failing, they're losing their grip on the global economy, so they can no longer afford to compromise with the middle classes and more comfortable sectors of the working class by giving them some mediocre crumbs and quote unquote rights at the expense of the super-exploitation of the working class in the global South. So like both Democrats and Republicans are completely reliant on these like national corporations that right now they don't have real profit margins

outside of speculative investments. Like even AI as an example, right? Like the most profitable part of the operation is Nvidia, like the company producing the chips, but you know, there's also an AI bubble, right? And once the bubble burst, there's gonna be very similar issues. So Elon Musk is building what he plans to turn

into the largest supercomputer in Memphis, which is going to be using, I believe it was like one or eight million gallons of water a day. They're building massive auto plants in our region. And so, you know, they're trying to keep up. Right. And this is all tied into all these policies that are coming out. Right. So liberal ladies on the coast might be freaking out about Trump taking their right to abortion. But the abortion bans are maybe not uniquely, but primarily concentrated in the South, right? The criminalization

of trans people as well. And that's all tied to the fact that the US is urging to like increase birth rates and build manufacturing plants domestically. So like they want us to have babies starting in the South so these babies can work a brutally shitty manufacturing job when they grow up. You know we're also seeing an increase in prison labor throughout the South and in other parts, I know. And we're not just seeing it like in the food industry, but also in the auto industry and other parts of manufacturing. And so like the reality too is that it is practically impossible for the U.S. to re-industrialize at the rate that they hope. And so none of this is realistic or sustainable. It's entirely delusional.

And it's the trajectory the country has been regardless of who's in power, right? And at the same time, there's two sides of every coin, right? So like all of this is true, but then on our end, we're also at the point where the people who are the most necessary to class struggle have no voice, have no political voice of representation within quote unquote legitimate political discourse, right? So the

Petite Bourgeois activists got comfortable. We have continued to postpone the task of developing a correct understanding of society in class struggle or movements for God how to properly assess conditions, which classes are there in society, what's the relationship with each other and with economy, politics, culture, nature, which classes are best positioned to lead, which classes can either align or betray the class struggle and which classes are just entirely antagonistic to progress

and should be isolated. And so therefore, like, you know, we're completely disconnected from the centers of the working class that are supposed to be the lifeblood, a leading force of our movement, and we are unable to be relevant to them. So we cannot consolidate behind their interests or demands and, you know, we cannot advance the class struggle beyond spontaneous struggles, right? So since the CPUSA capitulated to the Democratic Party in the mid-30s, like the proletariat lost its ability to act as a unified and independent political force.

And now the interests, demands, and leadership of the proletariat is nowhere to be seen in revolutionary or progressive movements. And, you know, leftist movements without the proletariat are unable to articulate progressive or concrete demands and have no chance of winning. So these executive orders made me think the same thing Palestine made me think, right? We cannot postpone our historical tasks, right? As so-called progressive elements of society. So speaking about classes, which are completely antagonistic to the revolutionary movement and should be treated as such. You've talked about how in the South and I mean I definitely think this could be broadened out outside of the South, but you've just specifically talked about how in the South.

It's not really a question of liberalism versus conservatism as much as it is a question of socialism versus fascism. And you've also expressed to me in our personal communications the importance of class-based organizing and the limits of identity-based organizing. And so I'd love to hear a little bit more about both of those and sort of, yeah, the socialism versus fascism divide which i think has always been the real divide and i think it's becoming more and more obvious to more and more people as as we move forward historically now and also this importance

of labor first organizing and unifying workers in a bourgeois democracy that tries tirelessly to divide us all by our various identities. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I'm going to address this in parts and it might get a little long-winded, but for the first part of the question, in terms of socialism versus fascism, I mean, we live in the Southeast and the contradictions are sharper here. The Democrats' role nationally is to cover up for the bourgeoisie, to absorb energy and distract. So you were mentioning how they basically sabotaged the vote at the NLRA, and that's just because they don't have any relevance right now. They don't have to lie, so their mask is off. So their mask has been off in the South for a very long time.

So Southern workers saw it coming. So they don't really have a political relevance or really play a role for the bourgeoisie in the Southern States outside of the cities. And inside the cities, we have seen how Democrats have not been useful and in fact, pretty antagonistic to the working class. Right?

So, you know, for example, we organize with Uber and Lyft drivers, as I have mentioned. And drivers have seen firsthand how the Democratic Party and Democratic Party adjacent groups have actively tried to sabotage their organizing. They saw how Kamala Harris, her brother-in-law, Tony West, who is the top lawyer at Uber, was basically dictating her decisions around her political platform. So the workers are able to see that the Democrats do not

have their best interests in mind. So that's not that hard. And on top of the fact that workers in the South are among the most exploited workers in the country, and Democrats have not shown anything but contempt to them. And I'm gonna talk a little bit more about what you're mentioning around reductionism and with identity versus class.

So I just wanna begin by stating some premises. with reductionism and with identity versus class. So I just want to begin by stating some premises. So we want a comprehensive, not reductionist, understanding of class and class society. And the problem with the reductionist understanding of class, which also includes frameworks like intersectionality, is that these frameworks see patriarchy, white supremacy, which we as Reds, we know this as national oppression. So patriarchy, national oppression, and capitalism, the reductionist see these as separate systems, rather than different aspects of class society. And it is not parallel systems,

it is not separate or intersecting systems, it is the same systems. And how we think about it has implications for the work that we do and the strategies we engage in. So as materialists, we know that it is impossible to separate patriarchy or white supremacy from capitalism, patriarchy and national oppression evolve with class society and will fall with class society. Our reductionist framework focuses on individual experiences with discrimination but fails

to properly understand the nature of oppression or means to get free from the oppression. You know, when your analysis is reduced to the individual experiences, it is not complete and can only produce individual gains. And that's not the point. These frameworks provide an avenue to opt out of the class struggle and collaborate with antagonistic classes. So as we call it in the labor movement is some scab shit, right? Like it's scabbing. So a bourgeois woman, right? For example, also benefits from the pay gap

because it means that she can pay some of her workers less. A black US citizen can still be a gentrifier and colonizer when traveling to other countries in the global South, right? Whether he's been a digital nomad or traveling to Tulum. And a reductionist framework ignores this. So right off the bat, any framework that obscures the line between oppressor and oppressed and distracts from class struggle is backward, right? And so, you know, I know that's not very, that is a little bit controversial, that's okay.

It's true. Organizing on the basis of identity and not class means that we are de-prioritizing, aligning behind the revolutionary forces of society. Some workers experience higher exploitation, show higher militancy, and hold decisive power in the supply chain. And these workers are supposed to be the lifeblood of our movement.

But you know, in the US, a majority of these workers are imperialized or racialized workers. And if we have a comprehensive understanding of class, that should not be a surprise. So a reductionist framework always leads to leaving these workers behind. We are leaving Black workers behind, we're leaving Brown workers behind. It's why the recent movements that have only centered around identity led to electoral politics and corporate friendly DEI initiatives. So high income jobs could become more diverse while the most exploited jobs continue to be exclusively for black and brown workers, right?

Almost exclusively. And so it doesn't mean that we are not looking at, I am an immigrant myself, right? But my interests, my level of necessity in the class struggle is different than an immigrant farm worker, right? So to be honest, like I do play an active role in class struggle, but my interests are not as important.

And that's just, that's just true. And regarding the debate of identity versus class, and so I know that I've used that topic before, but I don't really like the wording for it, because it's not really a debate. We live in a class society. Class is the threat that ties the different systems of oppression together and the ultimate determining factor that separates who's a friend and who's an enemy.

It is determined by your means of sustaining and reproducing yourself, right? So how do you appropriate value? Do you have to work? Do you do reproductive labor? Do you exploit others, right? So like, you know, classes are social groups of people that occupy a common role in economic production and distribution. They share a common way of life, common political interests, which is key, common political interests, and a common place in society. Right? So if we are not organizing by class, we are not going to be aligning people that have the same political interests. And so, you know, the premise for organizing people around their labor is that we do whole power where we perform our labor, and our consciousness is also shaped by the labor that we perform, right?

And it's also, you know, a way of bringing the different sectors of the proletariat together, right? Like you cannot organize a Mexicans-only union or a women-only union, right? But I also want to make clear that not just because we organize labor, we think our workplaces are created equal, right? But I also want to make clear that not just because we organize labor, we think all workplaces are created equal, right? So it can also be controversial, right? Especially in the labor movement, where we have, you know, this culture of like, organize your workplace, like, which workplace? It's like, oh, any workplace, right? Like, wherever you are, we don't believe that. And so, you know, labor unions and tenant unions are just two effective ways to consolidate people by class, right? And when

you consolidate them by class, you help them build their power. So when we organize people, according to the place where they spend most of their time, we need to be thinking about their specific sector in society. What sector do they have? Are they advanced, middle, backward? What is the difference between building a labor union of right-shared drivers or a union of cheap manufacturing workers versus a union of software developers at Google? What would the class character in HP? What would the demands look like? And so while the software developers

are employees of Google, a big tech multinational that most certainly be held accountable, they are much more comfortable than other workers in Google's supply chain. There is a Google union already, and we know that it has not been able to challenge the political decisions of their employer effectively. And, you know, because software developers

are not part of the advanced forces, right? And their demands will often be limited to their self-interest unless they become accountable to the advanced, right? Unless there is a political party that can guide them and hold them accountable to that line, it's going to be difficult. And so we can also apply this logic to like student unions, for example, right? Students are not a class in and of themselves, but

you know, student unions might have a specific class character based on their class composition of their members, background, class aspiration, all of this plays a role. So what is the difference between building a student union in a public high school in a working class neighborhood and a student union at Harvard? Harvard is a bourgeois structure that should not exist. Bourgeois structures should not be consolidated. The majority of the students at Harvard are never going to align with the interest of the revolutionary forces, on the contrary. So we cannot use place-based or structure-based organizing to consolidate Harvard students around progressive and concrete demands.

And so even when focusing on less reactionary sectors, such as Harvard, let's think more on the traditional, the Tipu-Josi. So you can have HBCU students or state college students, immigrant students, we can consolidate these sectors, but they must be accountable to the advanced classes. A student union at an HBCU might demand new dorms, for example, as part of their demands of the student union at an HBCU might demand new dorms, for example,

as part of their demands of the student union. But maybe these dorms are going to displace black working class residents living nearby. We saw this with undocumented students too, right? Like undocumented students or business owners are not the same as undocumented workers. In the 2000, right? Like with the DREAM Act, we saw how undocumented students were willing to throw undocumented workers under the bus by incorporating a free draft for the US military in the DREAM Act. And so through social investigation is that we can identify the sectors whose power we

must consolidate, who needs to follow, and which sector should be isolated. And so like that is to say, we need to be thinking a concrete understanding of concrete conditions, a comprehensive understanding of class if we are actually trying to call ourselves progressive. Right, so, and a lot of people do say, oftentimes a lot of middle-class cabs might say like,

hey Cecilia, well, you're pretty bourgeois yourself, and so therefore everything that you have to say about aligning with the workers is invalid. And so I've heard comments like that, right, from people who've like probably never read revolutionary history, but you know, we know that historically there's always been like progressive elements within student movements and within the middle and upper classes who align with the advanced classes in progressive movements. And often revolutionary leaders have been themselves members of the petit-bougeoisee. Because as individuals, their class backgrounds didn't determine their class consciousness.

But not just because they are more advanced and progressive elements within the Petit Bourgeoisie, it means that the Petit Bourgeoisie as a whole is an advanced class. Students have often led ideological consolidation in revolutionary movements, but only when they manage to properly integrate, as student class interests are not progressive by themselves. And so it is perfectly fine to have like an organization that is composed of students or workers that are more comfortable or have more of a petit-boujouac character, but it is important to be aware of our class character and understand the role that we're supposed

to play in the struggle. Because each sector, as I mentioned, has a specific historical role in the transformation of society. And so our sectors need to be in alignment behind the leading sectors of revolutionary struggle. So, you know, it comes to the question like, which forces are we consolidating? Whose power are we building? whose demands are guiding the movement, which class are we loyal to? And so, you know, the advanced classes are those whose interests are most important,

their time is more valuable, their role is more necessary. So if the progressive elements within these sectors, which include progressive elements that also have oppressed identities. If they truly decide to transform and change, they must understand that they have to align their movements' priorities and demands with the interests and demands of the advanced sectors of society. Youth in the 1930s understood this. Masses of young people would quit school to go build industrial unions. Youth in China would go to the countryside to integrate with the poor peasants, right?

And we've also seen the consequences of what happens when the middle forces fail to align with the interests of the advanced forces, right? In short, our movement is not gonna be effective or demands might not be concrete or progressive. We saw during the New Deal Compromise, right? In the 1930s, there was solidarity being built among white, black, and immigrant workers,

but there was a point where the advanced sectors of the working class were de-prioritized. The New Deal policies compromised with white workers are others' expense and sabotage the class struggle. The working class lost political independence and became subjugated to the Democratic Party, which is a capitalist imperialist entity opposed to its interests.

And these reflected internal contradictions in the movement at the time, which the enemy exploited. We also see our movement today. In the last decades, thousands of people have been taking the streets every year and joining organizations. What our movement is losing, right? And this also speaks to the fact

that we have not been able to cultivate the power and center the interests of the right social base. So like in conclusion with this question, right? You know, queer people should be communist, trans people should be communist, black people should be communist, immigrant refugees and other imperialized people.

We should do SICA to understand of society and identify the sectors to our best position to lead and build fighting organizations. You're listening to an Upstream Conversation with Cecilia Guerrero. We'll be right back. Oh, baby, oh, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, is my baby, I call great is my. Oh, baby, oh, baby, baby. The baby won't come no more. The baby won't come no more. Bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye bye, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye bye, bye bye, bye bye bye, bye bye, bye bye bye, bye bye bye, bye bye bye, bye bye bye, bye bye bye, bye bye bye You'll miss me, you'll miss me, you'll miss me when I'm gone You miss me when I'm gone

Oh easy matter Oh easy matter, oh easy matter Easy matter, oh easy matter. Oh easy matter, but you'll need that radio sometime. Easy matter, but you'll need that radio sometime. I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, I'm a poor boy, That was Payday at Coal Creek by Odetta and Larry. Now back to our conversation with Cecilia Guerrero. I can't state how much I really appreciate how guided you are by this question of a concrete analysis of a concrete situation and this sort of like robust social inquiry and investigation that you bring to your work and, you know, identifying revolutionary classes and revolutionary individuals within those classes. And on that note, I'm wondering if you can maybe tell us a little bit about Alutasigue,

which for listeners who don't know translates to the struggle continues, I believe, and just a little bit more about the work that you are doing on the ground there. Yeah, for sure. So, Aluta Sigue is the way that we call it, is an incubator that trains young people and workers within, you know, advanced sectors of the working class to build and lead their own class struggle organizations. We are a fully like volunteer organization, like nobody's getting a salary, but just like that we've been able to accomplish

some significant wins in the state of Tennessee, which is supposed to be a very hostile place for workers. So, as I was mentioning, we begin our work with social investigation and try to be integrated with the different parts of the working class in our region. And within the working classes, you know, we become familiar with what's happening on the ground, right?

And identify where are the groups of workers that are most militant? Where are the groups of workers that are most essential for the economy, most necessary for the enemy? Where are the groups of workers that are most exploited, right? And through some of those questions, we're able to identify which of these sectors might be advanced within our region, what might have potential, and then that's where we invest our energy. So as I was mentioning, we have three different projects. So we have the dependency drivers union,

Poder Popular and the Southern Youth Solidarity Network. And so, you know, I can talk a little bit about the campaigns that we have going on. And so maybe that way you can understand our approach. Yeah, that sounds great. And in fact, I'd love if you could maybe start with Pudera Popular. So I'm particularly interested in the tenants union that you're building as you organize construction

workers in Nashville. For sure. Yeah. So as I mentioned before, tenant and labor unions are a way of consolidating power by class. So in terms of organizing methodology, that's primarily what we use, place-based or structure-based organizing,

but identifying where to consolidate through social investigation, right? So we conduct social investigation, spend time in working class communities. And this doesn't just mean that we're just chilling, right? Like there's a lot of data tracking that goes with that. And we have to be meticulous about that. And so our relationship with the leaders of Poder Popular

goes way back to even like a previous organization. And to a point where we were primarily focused on the construction industry, which is no longer the case, but it is one of the main industries where we have leverage in. So, like the construction industry plays a crucial role in our area's economy and its workforce is predominantly Latino immigrant workers, like predominantly because you have what we call like a fire economy, right?

Like the finance, insurance, like real estate economy. Nashville is one of the fastest gentrifying cities in the country. We have over 100 new residents a day, thanks to big tech companies, right? Like Oracle, like Amazon, Facebook moving their headquarters to their region. In the case of Oracle, they're moving their world headquarters to our region. And that is completely changing our neighborhoods and displacing a lot of working class people. And so because it has an unprecedented demand for new construction and because of the nature of the construction industry, which is not organized in an industrial fashion, for their popularity and strategies like tenant unions

at complexes where construction workers live. And thanks to the segregation that you see in Nashville's neighborhood, you can do that. And so we have been using tenant unions as a way to build critical mass. Also, tenant unions are an avenue to organize whole families, which honestly is really important because it is avenue to organize whole families, which honestly is really important because

it is difficult to organize immigrant workers on the job. And we don't have access to their jobs. And in nationally oppressed communities, the role of the family plays an important role at either encouraging or hindering militancy. And I know this from, you know, my own family's experiences, right? My grandma was like fully body into the into the class struggle, right? And, you know, if there was a strike at the steel mill, like she would be all in and she would be like, you know, to my grandpa, like you're going like, and so at this point, like, you know, your co workers are telling you to strike, your spouse is telling you to strike. So you as a worker are going to go on strike, right? And that can be like what prevents you from going to strike or not. And so we have, right now, we're mostly focused on trailer parks. You know, we have

built kind of a little, a small little network of tenant unions at trailer complexes. Unidos por nuestras familias, it's a union of more than 300 families in La Verde, Tennessee, just outside of Nashville, primarily construction and manufacturing workers. We have suburban mobile home, which is about 110 families in Anyoke, South Nashville area, construction and hospitality workers.

And then our work has inspired a tenant union in Memphis, which is called Besitos Unidos, the real estate, which is also several hundred families in the construction and manufacturing industries, right? And so the way that we do it, as I have been mentioning, is that we try to find workers that are already very militant, like organizing themselves, right? As opposed to a lot of traditional unions that might be like, you

know, spending a lot of their like organizing resources being like, you know, how do we get this specific sector to care enough about their own self-interest? Like, rather than that, we just try to find the just angriest, most ready group of workers and assess them on also what is the role that they play in their economy, what are their ambitions, whatnot. We don't take cases of less than 20 people, because we're an all-volunteer organization, so we have to use our time effectively. But that also allows us to have a threshold and like really find the most militant folks, right? And also the strongest leaders. Because if you are mobilizing 30 or even like in some of the cases, like up to 100 of your neighbors and like, I gotta meet you. We got something here, right? Like there's potential

and like there's a lot of human potential and these folks really want they want to learn how to build an organization. They're gonna pay attention like they're more likely to do their work because workers are not trying to find a safe space or a social networking space in their political struggles. Like they are trying to address their very concrete problems and they want you to be competent and confident. And other than that, like they're not gonna be, like they're not gonna go near you. They want somebody that they can work with

and engage in a relationship of struggle. So with these, we've been able to build a significant base of construction workers and also other industries as well. And because it is a lot easier to struggle against your landlord, folks are way more willing to do that. And they're able to learn some concrete skills

on how do you build that kind of power? How do you organize inside a specific place or location? And that just builds people's leadership and confidence. Absolutely, yeah, That's so fascinating. And one thing that I really love about this work that you're doing, bringing together housing and labor issues, which are definitely connected under capitalism.

The tenants unions themselves, they really uncover these class antagonisms between tenants and landlord capitalists, which as a tenant, we all feel that. But it's a great window into the class struggle and building class consciousness and then connecting that to the workplace, I think, is such an ingenious strategy. You're really uncovering these fundamental antagonisms that exist within capitalism and connecting them all,

and what seem to be disparate issues, the issue of housing and labor. And it's a way, I think, of really building class power in such a, like I said, ingenious and powerful way. You also have mentioned this a couple of times as well, the Tennessee Drivers Union, and unionizing Uber and Lyft drivers.

That's really fascinating to me, especially in the concrete conditions of how this work of driving for rideshare companies as all these separate units in separate cars, there's not really exactly a location or a locus where you can find these people necessarily, right? Like, or where they can get together and sort of talk about the conditions that they're working with. So I'm just, yeah, I'm wondering what that process has been like and what challenges drivers are facing to begin with and how you're sort of entering that space, finding these people and organizing them. Yeah, for sure. So I also want to give a shout out to the Southern Youth Solidarity Network, which is the youth led organization that Aluta SIGET has also incubated and work with very closely

for forming and supporting the development of the Tennessee Drivers Union. And so, you know, once again, things started with CICA, studying and like researching what our landscape looks like, youth and adult members being able to spend time in working class neighborhoods without necessarily a campaign in mind, right? So just being like, where is their potential? What are the conditions and who are the different groups of workers that might be active, where is their potential. So that also means that some folks got jobs in specific sectors, right? Including but not limited to

right share. And so that way, you know, you can really have your ear on the ground. You can be present. So during outreach, you then identify not just like people's objective conditions, but people's attitudes, right? Towards class struggle, like where they fed up, have they taken action before, how do they feel about current events, et cetera. And this is sort of known as assaulting, right? Yes. That's the technical term in union organizing.

When you sort of embed a union worker or in this case, you know, a member of the organization, whichever organization it is that you're working with into the business itself to try to instill the beginnings of a unionization campaign. Yeah. And also most salting right now is done when there's already a very specific objective of like, we're going to organize like Amazon, we're going to organize X company, right? So in this case, it was a lot of like, you know, young people realizing that they as students themselves, like we're not a social class.

And it's like we need to be connected with the proletariat. So just without any intention, some folks got jobs in specific sectors. And through that process, become familiar with the different conditions that the working class are facing. And so through this process, through social investigation or CICA, right?

We identify Uber drivers as a potentially advanced sector. So they are essential to the tourism economy. So Uber drivers are the number one form of transportation for people to go to downtown Nashville, which is like the center of like a lot of economic activity in the in the city. And so they are the number one form of transportation in our city. We also learn about their top issues, right? And learn that, you know, these are some of the, these are widely exploited

workers and like some of the angriest group of people that like I've ever met and you know, because as essential workers in like, you know, Tennessee's like tourism driven economy, drivers are facing robbery wages, long hours, police harassment, and just exploitation. And so Uber and Lyft, they are living drivers with as little as 20% of the fare of any given right. And so despite their 37.2 billion in profits in 2023, drivers are working 80 plus hours a week to survive. So Uber and Lyft have spent obscene amount of money on an army of union busters, of lobbyists, of PR managers in claiming that the drivers are independent contractors because quote unquote they have

flexible work, right? So because they can, you can work at any time and choose your own hours, but how flexible can the work be when drivers are having to work seven days a week, 12 hour days just to put food on the table, right? And so this is at the core of what the gig economy is all about. And so Uber and Lyft drivers are at the forefront of the fight against the expansion of the gig economy, which uses things like algorithmic wage discrimination to maybe discriminate against drivers or workers that are most in need for the job, like having something that is called the desperation index

and paying those drivers less. And this is something that is expanding across other industries. Uber and Lyft are partnering and making some unlikely and disappointing partnerships. So the labor movement, there's a lot of reluctance among established unions to organize gig workers. And this seems to come from political ties to Uber, right? So like Uber is partnering with unions like SEIU, like the machinists, and others to undermine right share

workers efforts globally. So they are starting, you know, there's like the company union that Uber funded in partnership with the machinists, and now SE SEIU called IDG, Independent Drivers Union. And like this union basically like, it's a honeypot for drivers and pretends to be a real union, but discourages strikes. It's behind a lot of policy initiatives in like more liberal states like California, like Massachusetts recently, where you have a ballot

initiative and he says like the liberal voters are asked, hey, do you want to vote in favor of Uber drivers joining unions? And like liberal voters might be like, oh yeah, absolutely, that sounds nice. And but these unions, they take away the Uber driver's right to strike and they basically codify their misclassification status, right? And unions like SCIU have been behind these initiatives. So they are dealing with a lot. They are right at the forefront of the fight against a horrible practice that is expanding throughout the whole working class to

industries like nursing, like retail, like all kinds of jobs are now using algorithms to discriminate and you know and then on top they have to deal with so-called like worker organizations undermining their efforts right so we also learn that these folks on top of the fact that they're well-experienced and angry, like they have had spontaneous strikes. So we learn about the history in our locality of spontaneous strikes by different communities of drivers. Right. So like specifically, like, you know, the Kurdish community, Sudanese community, Egyptian,

Burmese drivers, you know, we were able to identify Uber drivers as part of the advanced forces, because on top of the other things that I mentioned, we also learned that there had been different spontaneous strikes organized by some of these refugee communities. Drivers had organized separate strikes of about 50 drivers, but these strikes were not heard by the wider community and were ineffective, because there was a small number of drivers and they didn't have the technical expertise

and the ability to get press and all of those things, right? So we're like, okay, we got something here. And so we then went on identifying the leaders of these spontaneous strikes and brought them together into one organization. So currently there are over 400 drivers from 16 block nationalities that are represented in the union.

And the effort so far has paid out. It's not perfect, but I think that it has been fairly effective in the time that it's been active. Workers have already won most of the demands that they have for the city. So, you know, like rideshare pick-up songs, an ordinance to address like take taxis, stopping the harassment and ticketing of drivers downtown, an investigation around late night scooter accidents. But, you know, because we live in one of the states in the country with the most amount of state preemption, the main demands that the drivers have can only be addressed by a state legislature.

So that's like the next obstacle. The next obstacle is, is organizing to impact the political sphere and in legislation and that kind of thing? Yes, especially like being able to test the power of the drivers against a legislature that you know, it doesn't matter whether you're Republican or Democrat, they're both, both parties are completely antagonistic to right-short drivers, right? But we're going to have to test our power against a Republican supermajority. And so that's gonna be interesting. What do you envision that might look like in terms of breaking into and impacting the political system with like a capital P? Yeah, for sure. Yes, so, you know, we started our public actions.

I'm just gonna give some context about the previous actions of the, of Tidum. We started our public actions with a strike on Labor Day weekend. And so we're like, okay, so you were drivers are really essential to the economy. We made the assessment that that had some perks in the Southeast, the privatization of our public transit, the dominance of Uber in our transportation system in the South has a lot more perks than organizing them in a space like where you have walkable cities and subways and there's other options of transportation.

So we're like, we're probably going to need less drivers to cause more impact. So that was correct. We started our public actions with a strike on Labor Day weekend. So we pick a very busy weekend and we only needed about 150 drivers to stop taking rides at the airport to cause chaos throughout the city. There were lines and lines and lines and lines of tourists at the airport just like stuck there and there was like no bus that you could take to go downtown. There wasn't a lot of shuttles that you could have taken. And so people were freaking out. And that got a lot

of attention and was behind a lot of the wings that we had at the city level. Drivers were able to then demand. So instead of like, you know, many activist groups might go to city council and give a compelling testimony and hope that if you just bring maybe enough people to city council, you are going to be able to get some wins. Right. But that model is often obscuring a lot of backdoor deals and like the deep bourgeois style of like lobbying. and that is not where our power really lies, right? So our power lies in being able to cause economic disruption and so that is what we did. And then the disruption was able to get the attention of local city officials and instead of going to city council, drivers demanded that the city officials met with them on their terms at a space of their choice and have a town hall with them. And so city council members, representative of the mayor's office, like, you know, the drivers were able to speak to them directly in their own terms and address some of the

needs that they had at the city level. And so that kind of tested their ability to win things at the city level, knowing that we are engaging in a much longer term fight. And so because of state preemption, our demands can only be addressed by the state legislature, like the main main demands. And the state legislature is predominantly Republican and like the most anti-worker. They're controlled by two main groups that represent corporate interests. The Tennessee Chamber of Commerce, which is one of the most anti-worker. They're controlled by two main groups that represent corporate interests. The Tennessee Chamber of Commerce, which is one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful chamber of commerce in the United States, and a group called Americans for Prosperity

and the like. And so these groups control most of the powerful people in the legislature who control the Republican Party. And these people are never going to be your friends, right? So we cannot win the majority of legislators via traditional tactics. We have to use the power of strikes to force them to come to the table. And we have to target not just legislators, but their corporate handlers. And, you know, like what do we want to do with these campaigns and with fights, right? Like the objective here also for the workers is to address their concerns, right? And for us, it's also to clarify, right?

To clarify to workers, like who is their friend and who is their enemy. So we show up and we're like, this is the options that we have. So you have these demands, right? So you want to win, you wanna win a better pay, you want for Uber to stop oversaturating the market and like, you know, only accept as many drivers as the real demand requires. So y'all don't have to always be

competing with each other for rights. And so that's what you want. And these are your options. These are your friends. These are your enemies. This is who is funding the Republicans. This is what their interests are. And these are some of the things that we can do to win better conditions. And so we need to be clarifying to them at every point. So if there's any kind of failure in struggle, right, that failure doesn't lead to demoralization, right? That failure should only lead to higher levels of militancy and to delegitimize the system in the workers consciousness. So you've been talking a lot about the importance of militancy in your movements. And I want to sort of broaden the question out a little bit, because, you know, there are

examples of radical socialist unions in the United States for sure. But there are just as many examples of unions that are, you know, let's just say less than progressive or even reactionary unions. And, you know, I think this goes back. Historically, we can think about the purging of socialists from unions during the multiple periods of the red scares and an anti communist hysteria where the labor movement was really defanged. anti-communist hysteria where the labor movement was really defanged and those labor movements that were on the more progressive end were sort of, you know, their flames were sort of doused. And, yeah, I guess I just want to ask you to maybe, you want to broaden it out a little bit or just talk a little bit more about the importance of revolutionary communism or socialism or, you know, however you want to state that.

The importance of those elements being part of the labor movement and how the organizing that you do embodies that. Yeah I mean I think that it is important to first mention like unions on their own are not progressive structures right they are just unions. We've seen many examples of fascist unions throughout the global south, throughout Latin America. Very, very familiar with that. You know, without a party that represents the proletariat, they are lost and they're just looking out for themselves to reproduce their own structures as trade unions, right? And get more members, reproduce that, right? And we can say this while we still are recognizing the crucial role of organizing around production.

And it's not to dismiss the entirety of the unions or the workers in these unions, but on their own, they are not progressive structures, and many unions might not be representing the most exploited sectors of society at this point. Not that the members of these unions don't play any role in revolutionary stroke. And so, flashback to, you know, when the NLR was introduced, the working class was organized as an independent political force. There was a real threat of workers taking political power. And so, you know, there was a capitulation with the Democratic Party. And these and other New Deal policies were put in place as a form of compromise, right? To keep specifically white workers complacent and willing to break solidarity and scab on other workers.

And then the whole labor movement scab on the Reds, who had even gotten them the power that they had to begin with. And so the ruling class was only able to accept this compromise because it could afford it, thanks to the super profits that it extracted from the Global South. And so since then, labor's main strategy as a whole has been accepting the crumbs of our class enemies at the expense of the most exploited workers in the country and the Global South. We took the crumbs and stood aside as the terrorism against black workers continued. We took the crumbs and stood aside as two million Mexicans got deported. workers continued. We took the crumbs and stood aside as 2 million Mexicans got deported. We stood aside as the US crude and impose right-wing dictatorships across the globe.

And in some case, like even helping, like the AFL-CIO partnering with the CIA to suppress labor and left-wing political movements in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. And now we're living in the consequences, right? And so without the political guidance of a party, these structures are weak and often reactionary, and they are unable to capture the right social base to continue to be politically relevant and just end up sabotaging themselves, right? Just like they're sabotaging themselves

by the fact that some of them are scabbing on Uber and Lyft drivers. And so a communist party, a proletarian party, will have the actual vision and the priorities where a labor strategy must be focused on, right? Our approach is very different than traditional unions. Like we have a different line. We don't say that we're like more correct right now because we're only located in Tennessee. But there are very, very few unions that still organize outside of corporate campaigns, more pressure-based, very few unions that still use the strike tactic.

And those that use the strike most frequently might be putting their already small organizing budgets in organizing sectors that could be a little bit more comfortable. And that just requires them to spend time to get workers to carry, to rally around their own self-interest. So what we do is mostly, where are the workers that are already, already the most militant, most exploited, and like just necessary that we can find. And you know, that's what builds the fighting organization.

And ultimately, though, I think even these strategies incomplete because local fights cannot change national conditions. And you know, there's a lot of young groups, like it's young, I mean, like youth, like actually, like, you know, there's a lot of like young people out there that are trying to form like revolutionary organizations and, you know, are pushing out a lot of polemics, you know, talking about how their labor strategy is like the labor strategy. And, you know, they might just be basing these conclusions on like a very localized and often unsuccessful efforts organizing workers. And so like, I just want to speak to those young folks and let them know, we're not really able to speak

of a general line around labor organizing because the Red Forces are not consolidated to the point where a national strategy can be properly developed in this area. I want to ask you a question about the structures of organizing. And here I just want to shout out the podcast, Fucking Canceled, which had you on and which I listened to the episode that they did with you. I believe it was in November and I listened to that episode while I was doing a little

bit of research for my questions for you. And one of the questions and one of the topics that you guys discussed, which I was really excited that you guys covered this, because I actually wanted to ask you about this question as well. And for me, since reading Vincent Bevins, I'm not sure if you're familiar with him or the book,

but he wrote an excellent book, If We Burn, the Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution, where he looked at this last decade where we had the most protests and demonstrations of any decade in the past, and yet conditions only got worse, and he was analyzing why he thinks that is. And one of the things that he brings up is the importance of the structure of organizing. And this goes also back a little bit to the question of the political party

and this question of like, horizontality and more anarchist forms of organizational structure versus sort of the structures of democratic centralism and more sort of hierarchical or vertical structures. And there is an excellent essay, which you spoke about on that episode on fucking canceled by Joe Freeman titled the tyranny of structuralist, which really takes a close look at the limitations of the structuralist, specifically in this context in that essay, the horizontal organizations of the radical feminist collectives in the 1960s. But I guess

just to broaden it out, obviously from there, I want to know what your thoughts are on the importance of different structures and organizing, and particularly the ones that you have found to be the most effective, and maybe in your personal experience too, the most ineffective. Yeah. Okay. And you can take as much time as you need to answer this. I know it's a huge question. No, I know.

I well, you know, you've checked out the materials. I absolutely despise horizontality and horizontal structures. I find that they're often impossible structures to be in, often masking the decision-making processes, obscuring who has power within an organization, obscuring the avenues to develop leaders, develop members.

This all comes, obviously, to the final defeat of the Soviet Union. We started to see that during the protests of the World Trade Organization, like the anti-globalization protests, and then Occupy, and now, this last decade of mass mobilizations. And what I saw is that this idea of the worshiping of spontaneity, the worshiping of decentralized structures, just arose at the same time

as the non-profitization of social movements, right? So, you know, a lot of people might call themselves anarchists here in the United States, but the anarchism that folks are practicing looks very different than previous forms of anarchism, right? And so I could speak a lot on, you know, how I have been traumatized by decentralized structures of structures that like tokenize oppressed people

within our societies and refuse the idea of delivering leadership to the masses, right? Because, you know, I was talking about how your political interests might be aligned with revolution, but your class consciousness might not be. And so an organization that is fully horizontal, that doesn't take into account the membership development process, is's an organization that doesn't have clear avenues for how to make decisions or mediate conflict. It's an organization where folks are not developed enough, characterized by cultures of back-channeling, of burnout.

And in reality, our organization's ability to survive, to be relevant and to be progressive, right, on top of having the right social base, we need to have clear organizational structures and, you know, the leaders in place to reproduce its logic, its culture, and to be able to build an organizational identity that is intentional, that reflects the specific values and the politics that we are rallying around. A well-structured organization is resilient and it's accountable to its analysis, to its strategic orientation. Right? And so, you know, being able to have clear membership development processes

is a way to ensure that we're gonna have the right people to like reproduce your organization. Right? So I often spend times with all heads in, you know, my home country and other places, right? All heads who have organized more workers than I could ever imagine, right? That would be possible. Folks that are like, oh yeah, we organize the steel workers here, the miners here,

electrical workers here. And like, you know, one of the key things is to be able to identify and develop the leaders that can reproduce your organizational logic. Right? That's exactly like verbatim. I'm repeating their words, verbatim. And so what happens is when quote unquote, the defeat, the global defeat of communism, which is how they painted it, people stop associating with the word communism, right? They might not have one to associate with the defeat

that they associated with communism, but by diverging from the class struggle, they went for models that are not capable of... There is this one book called The Communist Necessity by J.M.P., which I'm not in full alignment with everything that he's wrote, but I do align with this one piece, right, and how he describes this process, like the failures of movementism, and connects it to the movement in, you know, the imperial court, just associating communism with failure, and trying to go for more decentralized strategies, thinking that they're inventing just new ways of organizing. Well, what they're really doing is just replicating models

that had already proven to be unsuccessful. So, you know, by not wanting to experience the failure, the great failure of the big communist states, now they're replicating the strategies of people who never really got to that point, right? Like you want to avoid losing so you go after like strategies that will never even get to those kinds of stakes, right? Like instead of advancing the class struggle, instead of taking the chance again and trying to correct the mistakes. And so that detachment from communism

it has characterized the United States and like we can go way back. We can go and see how the new left try to disassociate themselves from the old left. And in doing so, they sabotaged their own efforts at being able to build something that was long-term and resilient inside the Imperial Corps. Yeah, no, I really agree with pretty much everything you just said there. And I think the question for me isn't whether or not communism like

quote failed. It's about analyzing and understanding why certain battles were lost. And if you give me just a sec here, I want to read a quote that I just read last night in the long transition by Torquil Lawson. And it's a quote by Rosa Lux read last night in The Long Transition by Torkel Lausen and it's a quote by Rosa Luxemburg and it was published shortly after she was murdered during the German Revolution and the quote is, revolution is the only form of war and this is another peculiar law in history in which the ultimate victory can be prepared only by a series of defeats. The whole road of socialism, so far as revolutionary struggles are concerned, is paved with nothing but thunderous defeats.

Yet at the same time, history marches inexorably, step by step, towards final victory. Where would we be today without these, quote, defeats from which we draw historical experience, understanding, power, and idealism? Today, as we advance into the final battle of the proletarian class war, we stand on the foundation of those very defeats, and we cannot do without any of them, because each one contributes to our strength and understanding. There is but one condition, the question of why each defeat occurred must be answered."

And just kind of knowing, you know, what happened to Rosa and the history there, I mean, that's such a powerful quote. Amen. Yeah, a fucking man. And I guess to sort of wrap up our conversation, there are so many different ways that we can end this. And I think, you know, I asked you a little bit about, you know, the the Trump administration

and what this means for your organizing. I guess I'm curious, do you think there will be any major shifts in terms of the work that you're doing between organizing under Trump and organizing under Biden, you know, if there are any differences there and what that might look like. But also, just more broadly, what are you looking forward to? And what are the next steps for you guys? And also, I always love to throw in 1 million questions into a single question.

What can folks do to get involved from afar or if they're local? What kind of resources or help do you guys need right now in the work that you're doing? Well, I must say you can toss up on social media, online. We are Aluta Sigue. We are always looking for folks that want to throw down. If you speak different languages, we will love to talk to you. Always looking for interpreters and volunteers and folks that want to join the struggle even remotely, right? So like just remember we have, we're organizing folks representing around plenty different nations, many different languages, always looking

for people that can support with translating materials, conducting research and supporting different parts of the work. So definitely look us up in social media, look us up at alutasigue.org and to answer this question, how is it going to change? Well, you know, I'm looking forward to Trump disappointing people because that's inevitably going to happen. I was surprised, like a lot of even undocumented immigrants were like, well, the economy cannot be worse than it was under Biden. And so folks are going to they're about to find out that neither party has their interest in mind.

And so the the Democrats have already fully become irrelevant to the working class. Some elements within the working class are thinking maybe Trump is gonna be better. And so I am really looking forward for them to just get a reality check and just see really who the enemies are and who their friends are. There are gonna be some challenges and limitations,

but also gonna be expecting that more people are gonna wake up, right? So more people are gonna wake up. Hopefully even my people back home, I know that he's trying to end tariffs in Mexican auto and other parts of like the Mexican manufacturing. And so I am looking forward for our people back home to realize their role in struggle

and the relationship that the United States has with them and how necessary they are to the United States. And I hope they're able to see that and to shift some of their methods of organizing from primarily anarchists to something that works. And you know, in terms of how is it going to change in Nashville and Tennessee, you know, what we're seeing is that regardless of whose power militancy is increasing, at some point, you know, we were very lucky to get 100 people inside an apartment complex to want to join a union. Now just last year, we got a union of more than 300 families, not people, families, and

now a union of 110 families, and now folks united in Memphis. And those numbers that we're seeing are increasing exponentially by the day. So there's gonna be more and more people that are agitated. There's gonna be more and more people taking action. And so we as political workers, as like the petit bourgeois activists that might be more in a position to give our time, we need to wake the hell up,

integrate with the proletariat, so we can actually relate to their struggles and we can actually build some kind of infrastructure that is useful to workers in oppressed nations as well. So looking at Palestine, we were not able to provide or be useful in an adequate manner because we had postponed the primary tasks for way too long. So we didn't have a movement that actually had any feet, that actually had any power. And that's just what happens. So I hope that we're able to wake up and stop procrastinating on our immediate tasks. I hope that we are able to consolidate across state lines

with folks that are seeing the things similarly and understand that no matter how good our local or regional organizations are, if they are not based in concrete analysis and concrete conditions, and they're not in alignment with each other at a broader scale, we're not gonna be able to really challenge

the power structure as it currently is, right? So like, you know, we need a party. That's basically the conclusion right here. And so I hope that more and more folks realize that, more and more folks act like it and align their practice accordingly. And then we can start moving to a place where we are united. We can actually engage in life struggle and form something coherent. Because it's been a while. It's about time. You've been listening to an Upstream Conversation with Cecilia Guerrero, Chair and founding member of Aluta Sigue, an organization based in Nashville, Tennessee, which incubates and

trains young people and workers within advanced sectors of the working class to build and lead their own class struggle organizations. This is the second installment in our From the Front Line series on organizing. Our first episode in the series was released as a Patreon episode last week, but we've unlocked it so it's available for everyone. It's a deep dive into survival programs, mutual aid, and other forms of organizing in response to the recent Los Angeles fires. Moving forward, this series will be primarily a Patreon series, but not solely, so please go to patreon.com forward slash upstream podcast to get regular episodes on organizing. Please check

the show notes for links to any of the resources mentioned in this episode. Thank you to Odetta and Larry for the intermission music. Upstream Theme Music was composed by Robert. Upstream is almost entirely listener-funded. We couldn't keep this project going without your support. There are a number of ways that you can support us financially. You can sign up to be a Patreon subscriber, which will give you access to bi-weekly bonus episodes ranging from conversations to readings

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